Washington (CNN) - Three of the biggest names in the administration of former President George W. Bush congratulated President Obama on Sunday for the capture of former al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, while coming to the careful defense of their former boss.

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said bin Laden's capture was the culmination of work by Bush and Obama.FULL POST

Washington (CNN) - Democratic Sen. John Kerry said it is time to stop questioning the exact occurrences in Osama bin Laden’s house before his death in Abbottabad, Pakistan, at the hand of U.S. Navy SEALs.

“I thinks those SEALs did exactly what they should have done,” the senator from Massachusetts and 2004 presidential nominee said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “And we need to shut up and move on about, you know, the realities of what happened in that building.”FULL POST

Washington (CNN) - President Barack Obama says Osama bin Laden had a group of supporters within Pakistan helping to keep the al Qaeda leader secure for years, despite an American-led international manhunt that extended for nearly a decade with Islamabad's ostensible support.

Top U.S. officials insist Pakistan remains a critical U.S. ally in the fight against terrorism, but are demanding answers to troubling about questions bin Laden's presence in that country over the course of the last six years.

Washington (CNN) - Republican Sen. Richard Lugar continued on Sunday to question what Pakistan knew in the lead-up to Osama bin Laden's capture, saying it seems "logical" that people in the country were aware of his location.

"It appears to me very logical that if Osama bin Laden was in that home for six years of time, in a group of people that were connected with the military, then a lot of people in Pakistan knew about his whereabouts," the Indiana senator said on CNN's "State of the Union."'FULL POST

Washington (CNN) - Republican Sen. Richard Lugar, the ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations committee, on Sunday outlined his own plan for the drawdown of troops in Afghanistan, saying the removal of 10,000 to 25,000 troops after about 18 months would “satisfy our ability to fight terror.”

The Indiana senator said he would like to see more carefully defined objectives from the administration regarding U.S. troops in Afghanistan. A target date of 2014 was set by the Obama administration for ending U.S. and NATO combat in the country.FULL POST

Washington (CNN) - President Barack Obama gave the go-ahead for U.S. forces to raid a northern Pakistan housing compound based on "what was probably a 50-50 case that Osama bin Laden was there," his national security adviser said.

On April 28, Obama attended the last of several National Security Council meetings focused on finding and going after the al Qaeda leader. During that meeting, some advocated for the commando raid while others advised against it, according to National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, given there had been no clear-cut sightings of bin Laden by that point.